Los Angeles grocery workers are under attack by store owners, who claim that the rights the workers fought for are harming the availability of low-priced food for the local communities.
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Store owners won in early February the last round of court battles pushed by the California Grocery Association. Superior Court judge Ralph W. Dau ruled that the ordinance was unconstitutional, citing conflicts with statewide food safety and food handler laws, and discrimination between stores based on size and on whether they are unionized.
In reality, the CGA—a “non-profit” coalition of retail owners—wants bosses to be free to dispose of workers at will. Threats of layoffs force workers to accept greater exploitation or be replaced with cheaper labor. The goal is to maximize the owners’ profits—money that will not be going into the hands of the workers or the community.
The Los Angeles Workers Retention Ordinance—a precursor of the Grocery Workers Retention Ordinance—passed in 1995 in response to the privatization of the food services at the Los Angeles International Airport. When non-union vendors took over, 1,000 unionized workers were threatened with replacement. The ordinance granted city workers a three-month retention period whenever a city contract changed hands, with the exception of just-cause terminations.
An ominous consolidation trend in the grocery industry led workers to fight for the Grocery Workers Retention Ordinance, which passed in December 2005 and became effective in February 2006. The ordinance provides an employment retention period upon change of ownership, control or operation of grocery stores larger than 15,000 square feet. Most workers who had been employed for at least six months prior to an ownership transfer were protected by the legislation.
According to the ordinance itself, it was meant to ensure the stabilization of the workforce, which would result in preservation of health and safety standards as more experienced workers familiar with health and safety codes stayed on the job. The ordinance also granted legal recourses to workers whose retention periods were violated.
This legislation was a milestone for grocery workers. Cities like Santa Monica and San Francisco followed suit with their own ordinances.
However, the Los Angeles capitalist business owners did not share the excitement of the workers. The business membership organization Central City Association, whose slogan is “Our advocacy strengthens your bottom line,” claimed the city was using “its police power to regulate a private sector business.”
Los Angeles Council Members Bernard Parks and Greig Smith claimed “an ordinance of this type unfairly burdens business and discourages investment in many underserved communities of the City.”
They conveniently neglect to point out that community members cannot purchase food and other basic needs when their wages are being driven down and their jobs taken away. “Underserved communities” happen to be the homes of many grocery workers, who are hardly better served by this pro-business court ruling.
As long as profit motivates production, workers’ rights and wages will be constantly under attack. Only through relentless struggle can the workers defeat the bosses’ offensive.
